In September, Yahoo touted Firefox to Internet Explorer users as a "safer" browser. Now it's doing just the opposite. Funny what an innocent little "search agreement" can do to one's perception of the world. [TechCrunch]

Google wants to be your Web browser, not just your search engine, which is why it unveiled Chrome last fall, a rival to Firefox. Now we hear Google's ready to hit Firefox in the pocketbook.

If you don't believe Google should buy a few 30-second TV spots to hawk its Chrome browser, watch Google's VP of Search Products and User Experience try to explain Chrome to the semitechnical viewers at CNBC. The whole thing falls apart into a meandering talk about faster JavaScript rendering, overlaid with a chart of Google's waffling stock price — the real reason Mayer is on CNBC. I doubt investors changed their GOOG valuations based on Mayer's promise that in the future, crashing one tab in their browser won't take down the whole thing.

Users of Google's Chrome browser account for about 1 percent of the market, reports Net Applications, a market researcher. European browser-maker Opera — which you might have heard had it agreed to make the iPhone's browser, but it didn't, so you haven't — claims 0.74 percent of all users. Microsoft's Internet Explorer still dominates the market, but its latest version, Internet Explorer 8 beta 2, which was released around the same time as Chrome, owns only a third as much market share, around 0.34 percent. [PaidContent]

Google Chrome has the potential to replace the Windows desktop — and kill Adobe's Flash for extra points. So said Marc Andreessen, one of the programmers behind the world-changing Mosaic browser. He'd long ago envisioned a future where instead of running applications from a desktop operating system, computer users would get everything from servers on a network. It wasn't his original idea, but Andreessen pushed Netscape developers to replace the desktop with a "webtop." The result, Constellation, was bloated and slow. Ten years later, Andreessen told a small crowd at the Churchill Club in Palo Alto that Google is finishing his work:I've edited down Om Malik's report on the talk.

Only four years after its launch, Mozilla's Google-milking cash cow Web browser, Firefox, is now approaching 20 percent market share, reports NetApplications, a website-statistics provider. Just two months ago, over 8 million people downloaded a copy of Firefox 3, in a marketing stunt which garnered Mozilla a Guinness record. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer is dipping below 70 percent market share. [TGDaily]

Facebook's list of supported browsers does not include one that's proven relatively popular (if by hook or by crook) — Microsoft Internet Explorer. As blogger Dan Lewis points out, Microsoft may have invested $240 million in the social network startup, and you'd think that would win them some favors:

A new version of Firefox, the popular alternative Web browser, is getting close to releasing a third version. That's prompting people to take a close look at the business practices of Mozilla Corp., the maker of Firefox. Danny Sullivan, the longtime search-engine observer, is calling on Mozilla to let Firefox users pick the search engine built into their browser; Firefox 3 defaults to Google in its new release, as it has in the past. Sullivan has a point: Google, which has called for openness, risks seeming hypocritical. But he gets the business side of things all wrong.

Firefox, we told you, gets a lot of cash from its built-in Google search box. It's one reason why the underdog label should no longer apply to the Mozilla browser. The New York Times is just now picking up on this story, and wonders if all the money will ruin Firefox.

The Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit behind Firefox, just released its 2006 financial statement. It turns out Moz's for-profit arm is making millions from a deal with Google. 85 percent of its revenue — some $56 million — came from the Google search box that is the default on every Firefox install. Google also provides users for Firefox via a pay-to-download program with Google's AdSense program and the Google Pack — a collection of apps including Google Earth, Adobe Reader, Skype and Firefox. Firefox is generally posited as David against Goliath — Microsoft's Internet Explorer. But really, Firefox is more of the slingshot, wielded by the David of Mountain View as Google and Microsoft fight Browser Wars 2.0. The latest data marks Firefox at 14.9 percent market share against IE's still-dominant 77.9 percent.